


Hungry Work

by ggfoye



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Blood Sharing, Blood and Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, No Humanity Elena Gilbert, Song: Take Me To Church (Hozier)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27040135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggfoye/pseuds/ggfoye
Summary: To keep the goddess on my sideShe demands a sacrifice
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Kudos: 11





	1. | 1 |

It's only a matter of time. It's all borrowed time. It's been that way for eight years.

Eight years of waking up unsure what I'll open my eyes to. Will the bed be empty? Will the suitcases be gone? Will the blood on the sheets be dry or will it be fresh and mine?

I breathe a little heavier every morning her hair is my first sight. If relieved or disappointed, I never dare muse.

This is fine, I convinced myself years ago. This Elena is better than no Elena.

The soulless, apathetic, almond eyes who stare back at me through the bathroom mirror, though, are not Elena's. They belong to the vile woman who shares a bed with me—a bed, a body, a few bodies, and nothing else.

It's Elena. It's not Elena.

 _I'm fine with her either way_ , I'd told Stefan once.

He called that morning. He calls every few months, tries to reason and argue and I scorn him. Caroline cries and pleads and I laugh at her misery.

They don't approve of my methods. Much less of hers. She doesn't feel, so I don't feel—or pretend not to, or convince myself that I don't, or actually don't, it doesn't matter, it's all the same.

And still, I always pick up.

Elena looks at me like she knows. She won't say a thing, but she doesn't have to. A weakness, she'd say.

Each time I answer the phone it's one phonecall closer to the day she'll drop me. She can't have me if I have ties to my human links.

Elena swerves unaffectedly from the dead girl on the floor and enters the shower. It's my job to bury her. Not that Elena would care if I didn't. She wouldn't even raise a brow if I let the corpse rot forever in the middle of the living room for all she cares.

Her name was Shannon. Or Sheila. Perhaps Ingrid. I stopped taking notice of those things.

I chose her because I'd fancied the soft skin of her neck and the way she blushed when she saw me. So helplessly _human_.

A redhead. Skin pale and showered with freckles and big, full lips. Nothing like Elena.

Except for the long brown eyelashes. Subtle enough that I didn't think she would notice this time.

She did. She'd become quite good at it over the years.

"Bring me only the ones that attract you," she'd said once, seven years ago.

And it's been that way ever since.

Every night.

If they look nothing like her, the chances of her sparing their lives grow.

(A threat to me, a kindness to them.)

It's long gone the hope that this wicked routine might signal for some last shred of humanity. No, it is not jealousy that drives it. It's pettiness and spite and vicious amusement and nothing but morbid interest and scornful immortal boredom.

A demonstration of power, at most. A sacrifice made in her name. And in return, my goddess stays one night longer.


	2. | 2 |

_(My lover's got humor)_

The blonde's eyes become hazy and vague and Elena laughs perversely. The body drops to the floor with a thump as she lets go of it, disregarding and unfazed.

_(She's the giggle at a funeral)_

It is not the laugh I fell in love with a decade ago. It comes out of her mouth, but it's not hers.

It will do for now, even if it's not joyful. It's provoking and deriding. It's supposed to hit a nerve.

This Elena only laughs for the pleasure of shocking others. 

_(Knows everybody's disapproval)_

A mischievous grin is thrown in response to the man's horrified expression, which only inflames her entertained one. Her eyes narrow in pure feline amusement and she licks off the blood dripping from the girl's neck. She glances at me and I know what she wants.

"You can scream now," I whisper, compelling the girl's boyfriend. And he does.

Elena comes closer and shares the girl's blood with me. Her tongue swoops inside my mouth and I groan at the taste. But mostly at the feeling. Our eyes meet for a second in silent understanding and agreement and we both dive our fangs into the screaming man's throat.

His panicked voice gradually dies out.

And Elena, covered in blood and ecstasy, smirks at me.

_(I should've worshipped her sooner)_


	3. | 3 |

Lying on a pool of blood of her own making, Elena sleeps. Her peaceful semblance brings me back to a time when I'd slip in through her human bedroom window to watch her sleep.

Her brown strands of hair have the tips slicked with blood, but rest softly and wildly on her pinky cheeks. Her eyes flutter from time to time, reacting to whatever she's dreaming about.

I don't dare get inside her head and peek. Not anymore.

Stunning—is the word I'm looking for.

In these quiet, lonely moments, I understand all I give up to be here. I could easily leave. She wouldn't care. She doesn't in general.

But her face. What it promises. It's unexplainably and unreasonably worth it, even though at this point no one else sympathizes anymore. " _She's worse than Katherine_ ," they say. You'd think they'd understand, then. Why I blindly and dutifully follow her. Why I hold her every word like a prayer.

_(If the Heavens ever did speak, she's the last true mouthpiece)_

My cock is covered with another man's blood. Or at least, what was left of it after Elena licked it away.

We feasted like miscreated kings the night before, and the leftovers were still scattered across the bed, the floor, the walls.

It makes me sick and it makes me amazed.

Just another bloody Sunday. More of it would follow later that day.

Elena was restless—she was bored and bored meant murderous. I'd exhausted all the other artifices of distraction I'd worked on and perfected over the years, but indulging in bloodbaths was what got her going for now.

If blood was what she wanted, then blood was what she got.

I give all to keep her for the night. After the bloodshed, she does not look at me annoyed or vexed anymore. There is a fire in her eyes that is almost like the one she had as Elena. And I relish the painful nostalgia—welcome it, cling to it. Even if the price to pay is the bodies I now have to reap. This human, fatally aching feeling... this one poison I happily drink.

_(Every Sunday's getting more bleak, a fresh poison each week)_

The blood frenzy makes her burn. Turns her and intoxicates her into a creature of pure fire and passion and ravishing bliss. It is as close to feeling as she goes and as close to contentment as I get.

I revel in the beauty of my cruel killer. I revel in the life that pours out of her when she ends another's. It's sickening and I stay. I am shamelessly at her mercy and she keeps me while it's convenient. So I ruin and destroy and paganize myself into _convenience_.

_("We were born sick", you heard them say it)_

"Keep them coming," she says to me.

Blonde, promising college girl comes in, sack of limp limbs come out. And I keep them coming.

It's the only spoken rule. No questioning.

The rest—

_(My church offers no absolutes_

_She tells me "worship in the bedroom")_

The unspoken. My eternal flogging and self-harm: I also keep coming.

Sex is the only time she allows me to touch her however I like. It drives me crazy and keeps me sane. She puts no limits, no boundaries, she moans recklessly and she cums like she _cares_.

Sex is my happy place.

Sex is her playing field.

Sometimes it's leveled, sometimes it's not. I do not dare speculate if it's deliberately meant to be that way. I prefer the blissful ignorance of it.

In the first years, she had another unspoken rule—I cum first. Always. She'd make sure of it. Then she'd finish herself on her own.

As if to implicate, "This is not on you", "You cannot affect me."

Over time, I learned that biting her while fucking her usually sent her straight over the edge. Since then, she cums around me, on my fingers, on my mouth, wherever I wish and I'd earned the right to my own unspoken no-questioning rule. I decide when to climax, and she lets me get her there.

I pretend it's not a manipulated and well thought-out move of hers, and she pretends not to notice that I can see that.

An illusion of power is what she gives me. And I readily take it.

She is glorious and divine and I gladly pay tribute to every inch of her body. The altar where I hold her is never brighter than when she comes undone for me.

I live for those moments. I live for that second of pure bliss when she opens her eyes and she's Elena. It's almost nothing, it's almost gone, but I see the flicker. I see it when she bites her lips from silently mouthing my name like an appeal, a distress signal, a desperate plea.

A promise.

We don't cuddle, we don't hold each other, we don't kiss. Not after. But there is a moment of complete silence where we both lay, staring at the ceiling, that makes the world turn on its axis again. For a second. All else is silenced but our heavy breathing and speeding heartbeats.

And for that second, it's almost like the woman beside me is Elena.

_(The only Heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you)_

And so I keep coming.

And keep them coming.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, there is a voice that claims for those innocents. But my goddess smiles and calls upon me, and I promptly hand her everything.

_(I was born sick, but I love it_

_Command me to be well)_

It's Heaven and it's Hell. I serve her devoutly and long and fight unfairly for the moments where the aloof fog leaves her eyes.

Sex is my safe haven.

Sex is my battlefield.

_(Amen, Amen, Amen)_


	4. | 4 |

The girl in our bed is thrilled. She is mercifully ignorant to the fact that this is her last night on Earth. She is tonight's sacrifice and she is naively enthusiastic.

I smile down at her.

If she'll die, I might as well give her an enjoyable last few hours.

Elena walks in as I'm kissing the girl, forcing airy moans out of her. I have my eyes closed, but I'm aware of her every move all the time.

My existence is synchronized with hers, and hers is the center of my gravity.

"Elena, meet Annie," I manage to say in between kisses.

"Amy," she corrects me.

"Right."

We both pause to stare at the woman watching us silently from the bedroom door.

"Your boyfriend said you two were looking for company," she said shyly.

"Did he?", Elena asked unaffectedly.

The girl swallows, suddenly nervous, and her dark skin instantly loses a bit of color. She looks at me like she's asking for help, but I just laugh and begin kissing her again.

She's tenser, but she gives in easily.

Elena is treading calmly towards the bed, and I feel the mattress move when she sits down. It doesn't look like she'll be joining us today.

I don't care.

Amy tastes sweet, like lavender and honey, and it feels blessedly wrong in my mouth. This is what I want—something I don't want.

She glances over nervously at Elena, who is quietly watching us from the corner of the bed, but I pull her lips back to mine again.

I strip myself off of my shirt and pull out her dress. The matching set of fancy lingerie she's wearing indicates she was probably on the hunt tonight. She just didn't realize she was the one being hunted.

I let my fingers slide down her folds and she's fairly wet. I swallow her moans and begin moving my hand against her clit while entering two fingers.

Thrusting in and out of her fast, I work on building her up enough to try to spark something in me. Physically, I'm there already. That is never an issue. But I long to _feel_ something. Anything that is not towards the girl sitting next to us.

Amy cries out in pleasure and scratches my back, apparently having forgotten Elena's presence. I can feel her piercing eyes on my back, but I don't care enough to look.

I kiss her neck and she begins to sloppily unbuckle my belt and unzip my pants. I pause only long enough to help her get rid of my clothes.

"Won't you join us?", she suddenly and breathlessly asks Elena.

"I'm good here, sweetheart. Enjoy yourself."

 _While you can_ , I can almost hear her add.

I remove my fingers from Amy and tear off her panties. She pants, a bit startled and clearly turned on by my urgency. Her lips find my neck and she grazes her teeth lightly through my skin and I chuckle at the irony of it.

Before she can ask, I thrust myself into her and she gasps. I give her a minute to adjust to my size and begin moving. She's clenching me and I'm pounding her unrelentingly. I try to remind myself that she's human and fragile, but she doesn't really seem to mind my ferocity.

Amy cries out and moans loudly and I just want to cover her mouth because it's not the right voice or tone or timbre. Her waist doesn't fit perfectly under my hands and her legs just weren't made to wrap around me. It's all wrong and it's exactly what I had wanted, but—

"Can I be on top?", she groans.

The insecurity in her words irritate me but I oblige and flip us over together.

As soon as Elena enters my field of vision, I realize I should've thought that through. She's looking at me intently and almost curiously and suddenly I just want this to be over.

But Amy is riding nicely on top of me and I grip her hips to steady and speed her pace. My breathing is uneven and ragged and the girl is staring at me with such intensity that I pull her body down so she can kiss my neck as I keep pounding her.

I try—I _really_ try. But Elena's eyes are on me and for the first time in a long time I can't recognize what they hold, I can't read what they say.

It's not her—no. But it's also something else.

I don't hold back my expressions and moans and this time I stare back. The only sounds in the room are of skin clashing against skin and the noises of pleasure that are rippling from me and the girl that's now only minutes away from dying.

Her muscles clamp tightly around my cock and she yells out, shaking and sweating and desperately gasping for air.

Elena barely notices. There's a hunger in her eyes that is nothing like the one I've known and witnessed for the past years. I don't know what to make of it.

But it's enough to send me over the edge.

And so I cum, spilling myself inside this dead girl walking and grunting as I push myself into her for the remaining thrusts. I curse and pull out, slipping away from under her.

"God, that was—", she begins saying.

" _Quiet, please_ ," I compel her.

Elena's gaze finally tore away from me after a few seconds and moved to the girl as I stood up to wash myself in the bathroom and leave her to it.

Even though this time the girl looks nothing like Elena—I made sure of it when I decided I'd bed tonight's sacrifice—, she still dies screaming. Elena takes her time more than she usually does. But I've been numbed to the cries for help for a long time now to be affected by them.

By the time I get back, the white sheets are carmine red. I wait for the frenzy to wash over Elena, to take over and coat her eyes in ecstasy, but when she looks up, there's nothing there but... rage.

I must be wrong, though. I must be.

But she looks at the girl's body like she didn't suffer enough, like she'd died too fast. And I don't know if I'm supposed to feel appalled or relieved.

Elena stands up slowly and doesn't wipe the blood off her face or clothes. She walks over to me and I'm left paralyzed as she stops only a step away. She looks at me, frowning as if she was trying to remember my name.

Then leaves the room.


	5. | 5 |

Elena's eyes are hungry.

We haven't fed yet today, but that's not it.

She pins me down by my throat and growls as she rides me ruthlessly.

I am running out of air, but I don't care, the fire in my lungs has nothing to do with my breathlessness because she's here, she's here, she's here.

Elena.

Only the darkest part of her, but it's her.

And I know she's struggling to keep it under, she's trying to bury it back, but I hold her stare while she moves frantically on my cock, and she cries out and grits her teeth and clenches her hand tighter around my neck and I'm alive.

_(Offer me that deathless death)_

I dig my fingers on her thighs unsparingly and I don't care if it hurts, I don't care if it draws out blood or bruises her or injures her, I don't care because she _feels_ it and _I_ can feel it.

Elena is angry fucking me.

And anger—anger is better than the nothingness that's been inhabiting her for almost a decade.

And so I let her.

When I'm just about to pass out she stops strangling me and I instinctively gasp for air. She pulls my hair, tilting my head to the side and buries her teeth in my neck.

The pleasure hits me instantly and my cock throbs inside her and I can't help it and I can only hope she won't rip my head off when—

"Elena," I moan.

Her nails delve into the flesh of my chest and I feel the blood streaming down my abdomen. She's angrier now and that's what I aim for. That's what I've been waiting for all this time.

A glimpse.

And I know I'm playing at a dangerous game, because Elena will go all the way. She will either let some emotion crawl back into her or she will kill me right here.

I don't have time to feel reluctant, and so I push her harder.

_(Good God, let me give you my life)_

"Elena," I grunt hoarsely.

Her teeth dive in deeper and I revel in the feeling and I know she's about to drain me dry, because my eyelids are heavy and my vision is blurry and still I want her to keep going, to find rage or hatred or anything that makes her feel alive the way she does with me.

Her hands find my neck and grabs onto it eagerly, pulling it to her. She speeds up her pace, thrusting her hips roughly against me while her lips suck on me with a hunger that doesn’t exist in this world. She’s not yet about to cum, but she’s ecstatic and frantic and her moans are muffled by my skin and I know by the urgency on her fingers that’s she’s made her decision.

I knew.

As soon as I laid eyes on her on an empty road in Mystic Falls, Virginia, I knew.

She would be the death of me.

And this... going like this. I don’t mind. I welcome it. I couldn’t think of a better way to go.

I’m close to blacking out and all I can think of is that she hasn’t cummed yet.

Maybe she’ll do it after I’m dead.

After her mouth begins to tear the flesh of my neck—

And she stops abruptly. She stops and pauses and licks the wound while it heals and then looks up at me. Her face is dripping with my blood and her pupils are dilated and the veins around her eyes are of a deep purple.

She's glorious, my killer.

Elena despises and revels in my veneration for her.

_(If I’m a pagan of the good times, my lover’s the sunlight)_

She won’t kill me. She’s probably decided it’s not worth it if I won’t fight it. She’s vicious and she enjoys the hunt more than any other vampire I’ve ever met.

There are worse things she can do to me, and she knows it.

She stands up and I groan. We’ll both be left unsatisfied tonight. It’s torture, and from the look in her eyes when she steps away, it’s self-inflicted.

This isn’t about me, I realize.

She’s punishing herself.

It’s physically painful. My cock aches at the loss of friction, but the realization of what will follow is worse.

I close my eyes and wait to hear the sounds that will confirm it. The suitcase that will be pulled from the closet, the clothes that will be taken from the wardrobe, the silent emptiness that will consume this room and this house and this body after she’s gone.

This. This is the death she’s giving me.

Not the one she knows I would’ve picked.

But... but I open my eyes and she’s there. At the foot of the bed, studying me vacantly. Her expression is almost confused, almost innocent, under the quiet rage.

I notice her nails are deep in the palms of her hands due to the slight smell of blood.

After a minute, she relaxes. And the raw, blind emotion that coated her a second before is gone and the void swallows her again.

Before I can sigh and stroke my hair in frustration, her hazy voice speaks.

“I’m hungry.”

It’s short and it’s quiet, but I instantly know what it means.

I’m startled for a second, then it’s gone.

I barely think twice about it. If I pay my tribute, she stays another night. One number more or less on my body count won’t doom me nor save me.

And so again, and again, and again. I selfishly oblige.

I stand up, put on my pants and don’t look at her as I leave the room.

 _(To keep the goddess on my side, she_ _demands a sacrifice)_


	6. | 6 |

_No one is worth all of this. Not even Elena Gilbert_ , says the text Stefan sent me from an unidentifiable number.

I look up to find her eyes on me. She smiles. He's absolutely right and I smile back.

Elena is buying flowers at the local street market and being heavenly sweet and polite to the vendor. The woman compliments her necklace and she giggles cheekily.

Never mind the fact that we have a body she dismembered last night in the back of my trunk.

Turns out, for all that she was scared to be like me as a vampire, she's much more like Stefan. Except for the bunny diet. For all the times she'd wished she was like him, she probably didn't see _that_ coming.

 _Careful what you wish for_ , is what I think when I have to pick up yet another girl's ripped head.

"Ripper Stefan would be proud," I scoffed her once. And since then, she'd picked on the habit of imitating his little ritual. I wonder what he'd think of that.

She only does it when she ends up decapitating them, though—like only then they have earned her respect. I stay behind and watch as she studies the crime scenes like a party planner organizing flower arrangements. "The angle is a bit off", "her eyes are too widened", "they shouldn't look so still". I refrain myself from commenting that yes, they should, because there's more of their blood inside you than inside them and yes, that blot on the floor is brain matter, not splashes of their dinner.

But this girl, specifically, was handpicked—she was the spit image of Elena. Her brown hair and almond eyes were the same tone. She had dimples in the same spot she did. Even the way she smiled before I could compel her silence was familiar.

Elena saw my intention from a mile away. And when I delivered her the girl, I made sure to let her know I'd picked the most attractive one in the bar.

She did not take the audacity lightly. And after she put the girl's body back together, she kneeled before her and kissed her hand reverently. Then she told me to disassemble her back and put her body in the trunk as she passed me by and pressed a quick bloodied kiss to my lips.

A threat, it's what it was.

And so I put her in the car and we drove down the road like we'd usually do, to a town we'd never stepped foot on before, like we always do. After a few hours the smell of rotting body was pungent, though only for our vampire senses. And not to us, anyway, not anymore, we'd grown used to it.

Elena reached for my hand as I drove and I did not dare say or do or speculate anything but hold her hand back. Because this wasn't Elena, and this wasn't a kindness, nor a sweet gesture or a glimpse of emotion or humanity. This was a warning shot, just one I couldn't yet understand what was alerting me of.

And so we held hands and hummed to the sound of old grunge love songs on the radio and smelled the scent of pine trees entering through our opened windows as Elena's lookalike decomposed in the back.

Elena stroked the back of my hand with her thumb and her apologetic face was nothing short of perfectly performed when her nail scratched a bit too deep into my flesh.

_(There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin)_

This morning we made a stop at a small town and she decided we should walk around. We ate pancakes and drank milkshakes and I had to make an effort to remember the last time we'd had any kind of human food or had any sort of human interaction that didn't involve someone dying at the end of it.

And now Elena is glancing at me like she's one of them, like she cares if the flowers are red or yellow or a fucking rainbow, like she cares that she's buying them, like she cares that this crowded street isn't anything other than a walking, living blood bank to her.

She looks at me like she'd looked once, a long time ago, in a crappy motel in Denver, Colorado.

She smiles like she did the first morning we'd woken up together. When I realized she'd stayed, she'd stayed and no heads rolled to pay for it, no one screamed that night except for her and it wasn't for fear or pain or violence, it was glorious and godlike and full of _life_ in the midst of our death.

This is my punishment and I hate it, I hate her, I hate myself and the dead girl in the trunk and the vendor who looks at Elena like she's the nicest person she'd talked to today.

Elena reaches out to me and touches my heart like she knows it's breaking and her sympathetic look lasts longer than I can take before it turns into a scornful smirk.

I hate her and that smirk and that routine and everything around me because all it does is remind me that I've been living with the ghost of the girl I love and this girl, this girl in front of me—I hate her, and I despise her but I worship her and love her in the most twisted sense of the word because she's my killer, she's Elena's killer and she's also my only hope at salvation.

I serve at her feet and take her violence, take her hollowness and swallow it as my own communion wafer.

Elena takes a step back as if I'd just slapped her and I realize I've been fuming and looking daggers at her for a good minute now. I've never once stood up to her after all these years and I know she's become the spoiled assassin I made her out to be.

And in all my rage and fury, it's still absolutely certain that she knows I would never hurt her. She's sure enough that she could kill me and I wouldn't even raise a hand against her.

And still. Still, it was _fear_ I saw in her eyes for a second.

If it can't be of me, I couldn't possibly think of what it was.

We drive back in silence and I stop by the road, near the edge of the forest. I don't expect her to come out of the car, she never does, this morbid part of her killings is either too personal or practical for her to take an interest. 

But I hear her door open and then listen as she follows me as I carry the bag of her last night's dinner leftovers. I dig the earth at vamp speed and she watches closely, leaning by a tree with her arms crossed in her chest. Before I can throw the bag into the hole, she grabs my arm.

I don't question or say anything as she pulls out the dead brunette and picks her up to settle her down on the ground. She takes the matchbox from my hand and lights one up.

The smell of burning flesh and afternoon breeze and wet leaves fills our lungs as we stare at the flames. None of us say anything for a long time, but I know we can both see it—see how we don't need to squint our eyes to see Elena being buried there.

_(In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene)_

After I cover up the improvised grave, I can't help but look at Elena and when my eyebrows raise it's almost involuntary. I know I shouldn't question. But the hidden, underlying hope under my skin speaks louder for once.

And is quickly shattered.

"I like this bag," she explains, unaffected, and walks back to the car.

Some small part of me breaks, but this woman's blunt essence and detachment have long crawled their way into my own soul. And I can't help but laugh.

I look at not-Elena's undignified tomb one last time and follow my deity out of the woods.

Elena glances at me and catches the last whispers of my laughter. And even though the girl I love would never find this funny, would never approve of my mockery, would never be in this situation in the first place—it's her smile I see.

At night we break into a nice house and shatter the bed when Elena fucks me senseless and I laugh some more.

The day after she doesn't look at me or say a single word and at night she asks me again for her tribute.

I have a death wish, I realize. I'm playing with fire and letting my recently discovered shred of inner light and my arrogance wash away any trace of reasonableness I've ever had.

Elena won't kill me—she'll leave, and it's worse.

But my old self is suddenly in control and it's as if he's knocking on human Elena's house front door with a joke on the tip of his tongue.

And when she opens the door to find me bringing her this old Indian guy, I am completely and utterly aware of how stupid this idea was.

Before she can say anything... I burst out laughing. No, I'm not laughing. I'm splitting my sides and crying and it's ridiculous because she's fuming, and Rajesh is paralyzed and this whole thing is so absurd that I have no other reaction.

She shuts the door on my face and I sleep in the car, diving deep into my own well of emptiness so I don't acknowledge how badly I've screwed up, how everything is lost and how I'll probably never see her again.

Until the next morning, when I'm awoken by the squeaky sound of the passenger door opening.

Elena glances once at me. Only once.

Her lips are tightly pressed, but I could swear that as I started the car, she briefly looked out the window to hide a soft, silent chuckle.

_(Only then I am human, only then I am clean)_

And just like that, I'm worshipping at her altar again.

_(Amen, Amen, Amen)_


End file.
